ESET Threat Blog

In researching today’s SC Magazine Cybercrime Corner article “From sci-fi to Stuxnet: Exploding gas pipelines and the Farewell Dossier”, I came across this ‘Damn Interesting’ article which showcases the successful cyberwarfare compromise of a SCADA / pipeline control system nearly thirty years ago, an event which I had heard stories about in Navy circles but … Read More…

The short answer is the media wants a cyberwar. Cyberwar is a dark, sexy, mysterious headline that sells and so each time something nefarious happens on the internet that potentially involves two or more countries, security experts are besieged with the question “Is this cyberwar”?
Let’s look back to the 1989 book by Clifford Stoll called … Read More…

[Josep Albors of ESET Ontinet.com tells us about a file attachment that was neither as boring nor as harmless as it seemed. Errors in interpretation or translation from the original blog are down to DH]
When we speak of files that can infect our system, most of us still think only in terms of executable files. Unfortunately, sometimes … Read More…

The difference is that there have been reported sightings of Bigfoot.
The keynote address at the Virus Bulletin conference today was given by Nick Bilogorskiy, a member of the security team at Facebook. To start with, I have known Nick for several years and I can tell you that he is very intelligent and a terrific … Read More…

Just in case you haven’t heard enough from me on the topic of Stuxnet, the Security Week article I mentioned in a previous blog is now up at http://www.securityweek.com/stuxnet-sux-or-stuxnet-success-story.

David Harley CITP FBCS CISSP
ESET Senior Research Fellow
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An Associated Press release http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100927/ap_on_hi_te/us_internet_wiretaps today indicates that the Obama administration is drafting legislation that would require companies to make it technically possible to intercept all electronic communications in the US. This would affect all of the US telephone companies, Skype, and also companies, such a RIM (Blackberry) that are based outside of the US.
According … Read More…

While the defining research on the Stuxnet topic doesn’t go this far, Forbes writer Trevor Butterworth went out on a limb to name names along with detailing the warfare aspects:

As I noted last week – and as the news media have only begun to grasp – Stuxnet represents  a conceptual change in the history of … Read More…

This morning I wrote a long and - I hope - carefully-considered piece for Security Week on Stuxnet and the whether it constitutes a nation state attack on Iran. [Update, 26th September: I hear that article will be available today or tomorrow.]
Actually, I was asked on Friday for a quotable quote or two on the topic, but I … Read More…

Recently a lawsuit was filed against Walt Disney’s internet subsidiary and some of its partners as well. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/17/flash_cookie_lawsuit/ At issue is the use of a special kind of cookie that is used in conjunction with Adobe Flash. These “supercookies” are called Local Shared Objects or LSOs for short. LSOs are not deleted when you use … Read More…

The Stuxnet saga rolls on. And while a lot of talented people have been poring over the code for a while, some questions are still unresolved at this time, despite all the coverage..

Who is responsible for it?
Was it really the work of a nation team rather than hackers? Well, our analysis of the code certainly … Read More…